week 5 (2/27) post and reflection

Here is a link for information about Morton Prince. He was listed on the syllabus but was not mentioned at all in the readings, so I thought we could all know a little more about him, particularly that he established the psychological clinic at Harvard in 1927, placing him firmly within applied psychology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton_Prince

I would like to reflect on the videos that Bill had us watch and how they connect to our readings this week. In the readings, applied psychology was discussed in the context of trying to benefit humanity, through the opening of psychological clinics, vocational guidance, and engineering, and in the context of selling a "product" to the public, a way for applied psychology to establish itself, but which led to less altruistic activities such as the psychology of advertising and business. In the readings, applied psychology was talked about in glowing terms of how it could others and created new professions. Indeed, this is how I conceptualize applied psychology, taking knowledge gained from research and using it towards the public good. However, the videos that Bill assigned made me think twice about this rosy picture. What was originally conceived with the best of intentions has been utilized with harmful consequences.

The first video discussed the ethics of medicating children. No doubt the professionals, psychiatrists and teachers, involved want only to help the kids. However, this can be taken too far. I agree with Sam and Emily that in principle, medicating kids is alright since it does seem to be of huge benefit for some. However, I think a line has been crossed when teachers pressure parents into medicating their children to the point that teachers wanted to medicate a three year-old. It seemed ridiculous to me when a teacher describes a the three year-old that she suspected of having ADHD as being "immature". He's only three! How "mature" can you expect him to be? I believe that there is over-diagnosis of ADHD because what is in reality normal of slightly above normal energy and inattentiveness of children is construed as a mental dysfunction. I believe that we should medicate children who truly need and would benefit from it. But when children don't conform to ideal classroom behavior and aren't the "perfect" pupil, this is not cause for medication.

The second video was about the use of psychological principles for advertising. Use of psychology in advertising in the early 20th century seemed to be for the cause of making applied psychology more widely useful, garnering more support for the discipline, and disseminating psychological ideas and making them important to the wider public. This seems innocent enough, but the psychology of advertising has turned into a money-hungry business that exploits our natural tendencies to make us the perfect consumers. Although this may be more a criticism of our culture, while it seems natural to use psychology in advertising, it should be discarded when it ceases to be in our best interests as persons and is used only to line the pockets of corporate giants and to dishonestly sway our opinions about political candidates.